


House of Horror and Doom

by ZimsMostLoyalServant



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Eldritch Abomination, GIR is too spicy for Yog-Sothoth, Gen, Haunted Houses, Nightmares, Worst fears
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-07 16:37:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19213330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZimsMostLoyalServant/pseuds/ZimsMostLoyalServant
Summary: When the Membranes, Zim and GIR investigate a haunted house attraction at a carnival, they fail to anticipate the true horrors awaiting them within.





	House of Horror and Doom

**Author's Note:**

> Another of my relatively newer works, this one has a bit of a story behind it. A couple of years ago, I celebrated the ten year anniversary of my first joining FFN by publishing a collection of ten oneshots. This story was part of that collection, and was frankly the best of the lot. Therefore, I decided I might as well let it stand on its own here on AO3.
> 
> Read and enjoy.

The Carnival had come to town, and it was as tackily lavish an affair as one might expect. Eye-searingly bright neon lights adorned numerous booths containing clearly rigged games of "chance". Food booths with grade Z ratings served deep-fried everything. Shoddily built rides spun, twisted, and threw around anyone daring or foolish enough to set foot on them. And sitting off to one side of the grounds was a haunted house attraction, designed to look like a stereotypical Victorian-era home.

It is here that our story begins, as standing outside the attraction were Dib and Gaz. The former was looking up at the building with a critical eye, while the latter was paying more attention to the corndog she was eating.

"Well, this is definitely the place, Gaz," Dib said, taking in every detail of the attraction's facade.

"Uh-huh. And why did you drag me here again?" she asked, while taking a bite of her snack and grimacing at it, "Ugh, tastes like a worn out shoe."

"Did you listen to me at all when I was explaining things back at home?" Dib asked, sounding somewhat annoyed.

"No. I just heard 'Carnival' and 'I'll pay for it, Gaz'. I tuned out the rest of the blather."

"Of course," Dib muttered, before speaking up, "Anyway, the point is, there's been a lot of rumors about this Carnival on TruthShrieker and other paranormal forums. It travels all over the country, visits a city for a few days, and then leaves. All perfectly normal. But, every single time, a group of people go missing. Always last seen attending the Carnival, and specifically, last seen attending this haunted house. Allegedly, it's actually haunted. Or possessed. Maybe cursed."

"I ask again. Why did _I_ have to be here?" Gaz asked, cracking open an eye in a mild glare.

"I need a witness, and backup," Dib explained, "If I disappear in there, you can inform the Swollen Eyeballs. That'll prove that something is actually happening here, and they can swoop in and put an end to it. And rescue me, obviously."

"So there's a chance that you go in there and might not come back?" Gaz asked, genuinely curious.

"Yeah, but don't worry. No matter what, I-" Dib started to say, only for Gaz to cut him off.

"I'm not worried, I'm hopeful," Gaz said with a smirk, "If you disappear, I'll finally get some peace and quiet."

"Your compassion is so touching," Dib said, deadpan.

"You want touching? Go rent a chick-flick," Gaz said, tossing her half-eaten corndog over her shoulder.

"Ah! My superior eye!" a familiar voice cried out from behind them. The Membrane siblings turned around to see Zim standing behind them, the corndog sticking to his eye, which was now bubbling and hissing at the contact with the meat. With a snarl of pain, the Invader tugged the corndog free, taking the contact with it.

"Zim!" Dib shouted, instinctively pointing at his archenemy, "What are you doing here?"

Zim didn't respond at first, instead rubbing at his sore eye, before peeling his contact off the corndog. He then tossed the snack away and put the contact back on. Only then did he turn to glare at his rival.

"For your information, Dib-Stink, Zim is only in this disgusting place because GIR dragged me here," Zim explained, pointing off to the side. The robot was wearing his little boy disguise, blue eyes glowing happily out of the fake head as he slurped from a Suck Monkey, oblivious to the world around him, as per usual.

"Anyway, what about you? Here to wallow with all the other filthy pig-smellies?" Zim sneered, still glaring at Dib.

"None of your business, Space Boy!" Dib said, matching the glare with one of his own.

"He's here to check out this stupid haunted house to see if it's really eating people, or something," Gaz said, easily cutting the tension as the others both turned to look at her in surprise.

"Gaz! Why would you tell him that?!"

"Pst. You two idiots were just going to yell back and forth at each other until he either figured it out himself or you let it slip. I just cut past all the stupid time wasting."

"Ha! Gullible little human," Zim snorted, "Even with as little as my amazing mind is able to comprehend of this idiotic planet, I still know that nothing on display in places like this are real. Your stupidity makes me laugh. Look, here I go. MWUHAHAHAHAHA!"

"Oh yeah?" Dib asked with a frown, before smirking, "Well, if you're so sure, Zim, what do you say to a little bet?"

"Eh? What bet?"

"We both go into that house and see what happens," Dib explained, "If it is haunted, I get to rub your nonexistent nose in it. If it's not… well, it's not like you need an excuse to gloat about anything, ever."

"Hmm, true," Zim mused, rubbing his chin, "And it would so satisfying disprove your imbecilic beliefs, Dib-Stink. Hmm."

"Seriously?" Gaz deadpanned at Dib while Zim demurred over the offering.

"Eh, it's worth it," Dib shrugged, "If there is something happening here, I might be able to use Zim as a decoy against it. And if there's nothing, it's like I said — he gloats and brags about pointless stuff all the time, this won't be any different."

"Zim has decided!" The Irken announced, "I will take you up on your wager, Dib. We shall both venture into this ugly scare-house, and I will prove that your foolish big head is full of nonsense!"

"My head's not big!"

"Okay, I've hit my stupidity tolerance level," Gaz said, starting to walk away, "I'm outta here."

"Yes, that's right, little Gaz, walk away," Zim said condescendingly, waving a hand dismissively, "You don't want to be part of this, anyway. You'd just be cowering in fear like a little worm-baby the whole time."

Gaz froze mid-step, as the temperature in the surrounding area seemed to suddenly drop twenty degrees. Dib, eyes wide at the sheer suicidal stupidity of what he'd just heard, took a quick step back to get out of the line of fire.

Lowering her foot back to the ground in order to firmly plant herself, Gaz slowly turned around, bones seeming to creak and flames almost appearing in her cracked open eyes as she did so.

"What. Was. That?" she said, each word like a nail in a coffin. For his part, Zim seemed to have realized what he'd just done, his green skin growing paler as his eyes widened in panic.

"Er…" was all he got out, before she slugged him in the stomach. As he kneeled over and wheezed in pain, she grabbed him by the collar and started dragging him towards the haunted house's entrance, pausing only momentarily to grab Dib and start dragging him as well.

"Gah!" Dib yelped, stumbling as his sudden movement caught him off guard, "What did I do?"

"This whole thing was your idiotic idea, so yeah, I'm going in there with both of you morons," Gaz growled, "Because I am not scared of anything. And once I'm done proving it here, I'm shoving both of you into a nightmare world."

"GIR! Don't just stand there! Help your master!" Zim yelled at the robot, who was just standing there watching the whole spectacle. In response to the command, his eyes briefly lit up red, but as per usual, quickly switched back to "normal". Humming a happy tune, he started skipping after the group.

"We going to go look for buried treasure, Scary Lady?" GIR asked.

"Uh-huh, whatever," Gaz said, not paying attention to GIR as she kicked the door to the house open and threw her two captives in. She then went in herself, GIR following behind.

The foyer of the house was cheesily creepy. Everything was painted in dark colors. Gothic paintings were hung on every wall. Candles and a lone chandelier hanging in the center of the room cast everything in flickering shadows. Cliche "spooky" sound effects were playing from barely concealed speakers in the corners of the room. And there were cobwebs — some clearly fake, at least some real — covering just about everything.

"Tch. Lame," Gaz muttered, while the boys pulled themselves up from where she'd left them sprawled on the floor.

"Wow, this place is so over the top it goes back to being cheap," Dib commented, looking the place over.

"Yes, yes, humans are bad are making everything, we all know this already," Zim said, ignoring the dirty look Dib shot him, "Let's just get this over with; Zim has more important things to do with his time."

With that, the group started moving, heading towards a nearby doorway. It led into a kitchen, which was setup to look like a slaughter had just taken place — clearly plastic human remains sat on the chopping block and in a bubbling pot on the stove, all of them and the rubber knives scattered around the room covered in "blood" that not even the room's dim red lighting could hide was just corn syrup.

"Is this supposed to be scary? Zim has seen worse kitchens on Foodcourtia!"

"Uh-huh. Your robot's licking the wall, by the way," Gaz said dispassionately, gesturing offhand to where GIR was indeed licking at a splatter of the fake blood on one of the walls.

Growling in annoyance, Zim grabbed GIR and dragged him after the Membranes as they exited through another door. Unsurprisingly, this one led into a dining room. The long table filling up most of the center of the room was covered in dishes containing plastic and ceramic replicas of rotten fruit and maggot-ridden meat, while fake corpses dressed in fine clothing were slumped over in all the chairs.

"At least they put a little more effort into this one," Dib commented, as the group passed through the room, exiting the other side and emerging into a hallway full of doors. Picking one at random, the group entered, walking into a large library. Large, dust-covered bookshelves towered over the room, but other than that and the standard effects that had been present in all the other rooms, there was nothing else.

"Are you sure all those people who disappeared around here didn't just die of boredom?" Gaz asked, arching an eyebrow at Dib.

"Is that something that can happen to humans?" Zim asked, a little too excitedly.

"No!" Dib snapped.

As the two quickly descended into another pointless argument, Gaz rolled her eyes and wondered off to the side of the room, where she'd noted an alcove of some kind. Walking through it revealed a small lounge-like room. There was a fireplace, a reading table, and a few comfortable-looking chairs, one of which contained a plastic skeleton in leisure clothes.

Snorting in dismissal, Gaz turned to exit the lounge back to the main library… and then a panel slid shut, sealing off the doorway she'd walked through. Gaz blinked in surprise, then frowned and marched over to the suddenly blocked exit.

"Dib!" she yelled, pounding on the wall, "Let me out of here!"

There was no response, and Gaz growled as she realized that the barrier was probably too thick for anyone on the other side to hear her. Glaring, she started stalking the room, looking for whatever hidden switch that must have triggered the door, so she could use it to get out.

So focused was she on that, in fact, that she failed to notice as one of the creepy paintings on the wall started changing. The picture of a mist-filled graveyard distorted and shifted, becoming an amorphous black blob, which shockingly began emerging from the frame. This black mass formed into a tendril and snaked across the room towards the oblivious Goth, who was bent over, examining the floor for pressure triggers.

Gaz suddenly tensed as she sensed something behind her. She jumped up, but before she could even spin around, the tendril lashed out and hit her in the back of the head.

"GAH!" she cried out, grabbing her head as pain blossomed behind her eyes for a moment, disorienting her, "What the hell hit me? …Huh?"

As her spinning vision cleared, Gaz saw to her total confusion that her surroundings had changed. No longer was she in the lounge alcove. Instead, she was sitting inside a cubical, pink-tinted glass cell, bare of anything except a bed and a small table holding a TV. Outside of the cell was a larger room that was also entirely empty.

Taking this all in, Gaz went pale as she recognized where she was. This… this was the containment cell she'd been kept in during that Pigmouth fiasco, when she'd been locked up and made into a public spectacle. It was the most humiliating stretch of time in her life, a total living hell. And now, somehow, she was back here!

"No, no, no," she muttered, feeling rare panic overcome her. Running up to the glass wall, she began desperately banging her fists on it, trying to smash through the glass, "Let me out! Let me out right…"

Gaz's threats to the empty air trailed off as her frantic mind finally processed the sight of the hands she was slamming into the glass. More importantly, the sight of the pink gloves covering them.

Looking down at herself, Gaz's eyes widened in further shock as she saw she was wearing that stupid pig-styled "protection" suit. Reaching up to her face, she realized she was even wearing the ridiculous snout-looking respirator. She desperately tugged at it, but it wouldn't come off, nor would the suit, no matter how much she tried to tear it off.

And just when she thought that this couldn't possibly get any worse, that was when previously unseen doors opened, and a large crowd of people marched into the room, most carrying various Pig Girl merchandise emblazoned with pictures of her in this horrible outfit. They all assembled in front of the cell and stared at her, silently muttering amongst themselves.

"Wow, momma, she sure is funny looking!" a little girl said much too cheerfully, pointing at Gaz.

"She sure is, honey," the girl's mother said, nodding with a wide smile. This set off a round of laughter from the rest of the crowd, which caused Gaz's eyes to start twitching.

"Shut up!" she yelled, pounding impotently against the glass, "Stop laughing at me! And let me out! I'm cured! I don't need to be here! I- oh, no."

The cause of Gaz's ranting cutting off was what she suddenly saw out of the corner of her eye. Slowly turning her head in dread, she saw that a plate stacked high with hot dogs had appeared on a table she was sure hadn't been there a moment ago.

Her stomach rolled at the sight of them. Ever since she'd gone through this whole ordeal, she hadn't been able to stand the sight of hot dogs and other pork products, let alone eat them. They utterly disgusted her like nothing else.

So why was she walking towards them?!

To her horror, Gaz found herself walking towards the hot dogs, totally unable to stop her legs from moving. Nor was she able to stop her hands as they pushed aside the snout respirator and grabbed a hot dog, lifting it towards her mouth. And absolutely worst of all, she was unable to stop her mouth from opening and biting down on the foul meat.

Gaz gagged as it filled her mouth, jaws chomping despite her mental protests. And then, practically before she could swallow, the process was repeated, another hot dog being shoved in. Then another, and another, and another…

"Wow, she even eats like a pig!" she heard someone in the audience comment.

"What a freak!" someone else stated, triggering more laughs and jeers.

"Pig Girl! Pig Girl! Pig Girl! Pig Girl!" the crowd chanted, as Gaz silently screamed inside her head.

XXXXXXX

"Gaz!" Dib called out, as he, Zim, and GIR wandered down the haunted house's seemingly endless hallways. When he and Zim had finished their rather pointless argument over whether Zim would be able to find a way to weaponize boredom and if it would work against the Earth, Dib had noticed that Gaz had disappeared from the room. Being both paranoid in general and a (somewhat unnecessarily so) protective older brother, right now he was panicking over the fact that he couldn't find her.

"Gaz! Can you hear me?!" he called again, only to receive no response other than his echo, "Dammit! Where could she have gone?"

"Obviously the Dib-Sister became so frightened by this pitiful place that she ran off with her tail between her arms," Zim said dismissively.

"The expression is 'tail between her _legs_ '," Dib corrected with a roll of his eyes, "And that's about as likely as you going five minutes without insulting me, or humanity in general."

"And what do you think happened, Earth monkey? That your demon-curse-ghosts or whatever took her?"

"First of all, I never said 'demon-curse-ghosts'. Secondly, I don't know what happened, that's why I'm worried!"

"Psh," Zim snorted, "Zim fails to understand why you'd even care, though. The Gaz-Beast is a horrid little monster, you should be glad to be rid of her."

"Hey, don't talk about my sister like that!" Dib snapped — admittedly, he had his own issues with Gaz and her attitude, but that wasn't something he wanted someone outside the family, least of all his worst enemy, bringing up.

"What's wrong, Dib? Did I hit a nerve?" Zim smiled smugly, turning on his heel and walking backwards, "Face it, human. This is why I will always win — Irkens are not held back by such pointless emotional attachments. We stand vigilant and undefeated! We-AAAHHH!"

Zim's rant was cut off as the floor suddenly disappeared beneath him, and he dropped out of sight. Dib blinked in confusion as this happened, watching as Zim's wig comically floated in midair for a moment before following after Zim into the trapdoor that had opened beneath him, and which shut closed seconds later.

"Well, that was unexpected," he said after a moment of stunned silence.

Meanwhile, Zim was falling down a shaft, still screaming in surprise, until he finally hit the ground with a slam, his wig landing on him a moment later. Groaning, he got to his feet and looked around, while adjusting his wig back into its proper place.

He was standing in a narrow corridor, lit only by a handful of torches mounted on bare brick walls. Looking down at the floor, Zim frowned in disgust at seeing it was just packed dirt; apparently, he was in the basement of the building.

"Filthy human construction," he muttered, "And who's the fool who put in a trap door without any kind of warning sign?! When I get out of here, I'm going to vaporize this place and turn into into a burrito stand! And I'm going to let GIR fill it with all his awful rodent burritos!"

As Zim ranted and stomped down a random direction of the hallway, he failed to notice as one of the torches suddenly extinguished, the torch and its holder morphing into a black tendril. It stretched outward towards the oblivious Irken, and suddenly lashed against the back of his head, which he never saw coming.

"AH!" Zim cried out, clutching his head as pain exploded throughout his skull, "Who dares strike Zim?! …Eh?"

Zim blinked in utter confusion as he looked around. Not only was he no longer in the underground corridor, he wasn't in the haunted house either. In fact, he was standing outside, on a busy sidewalk, surrounded by a crowd of humans. Not only that, but whereas he knew it had been nighttime when he'd entered the building, now it was clearly daytime.

What was going on? How had he gotten here? And why were all the humans staring at him like that?

"An alien!" someone shouted. Head snapping around, Zim saw a man in the crowd pointing a finger in wide-eyed shock. Right at him.

"Eh, what? No, Zim is a perfectly normal human! See?" Zim said, reaching up to point at his wig… and feeling his hand brush against his antennae. Eyes widening, Zim reached up and found to his shock and panic that his wig was in fact gone. Scrambling down his face also revealed that his contacts were missing as well.

He was standing in public, in broad daylight, surrounded by humans, and he wasn't wearing his disguise.

Panic overwhelmed the Irken, as all the other humans started pointing and yelling, many of them pulling out phones to take pictures and video of him. Watching all this, Zim felt his squeedlyspooch twist and churn, his mind whirling to try and make sense of this. He had no idea how he'd ended up here, how he'd been exposed like this. All he knew was that he had been.

Sending a mental command to his PAK, Zim attempted to activate his weapons, any weapons, so he could vaporize all these people before they could tell anyone else about him. But he received no response — not from his spider legs, or blasters, or cutting tools, or anything else. Nothing in his PAK was responding to his orders, meaning he was completely defenseless.

And that was when he heard the sirens. Looking towards them, he was greeted by the sight of several armored vehicles coming to a screeching halt. Their doors were flung open, and heavily armed soldiers came pouring out.

"Don't move, space freak!" the lead soldier ordered, as his men dispersed the crowd and aimed their weapons at Zim.

At this point, the last of Zim's functioning mind collapsed. Screaming like a howler monkey, he turned and ran off in the opposite direction from the soldiers, throwing any civilian unfortunate enough to get in his way behind him, trying to use them as projectiles against the soldiers.

However, it was all for nothing, in the end. Zim barely made it to the next street corner before he was tackled by a particularly stout soldier. The blow took him to the ground, where the soldier's weight pinned him, unable to break free no matter how much he struggled.

"Release Zim at once, you stink-ape!" Zim demanded with as much authority as he could muster, which wasn't much considering the situation. He flailed his arms and legs as much as he could to try and gain some kind of leverage, but in seconds even that was taken from him, other soldiers piling on and securing his limbs.

"Quick, someone get the holding pod!" one of the soldiers yelled. Before Zim knew what was happening, he was hoisted into the air, and then quickly stuffed into a glass tube just barely big enough for him to move move around a few inches in.

"The specimen is secured, sir," one of the soldiers reported with a salute to the apparent leader.

"Excellent work. Now, let's get it back to the base. Move out!" the leader ordered.

"No! Release Zim! Release Zim now!" Zim demanded, pounding on the glass as best he could.

But it was no good, and he was soon loaded onto one of the armored cars. The doors shut, and it zoomed off, taking the screaming Irken with it.

XXXXXXX

"Okay, so, let's recap," Dib muttered to himself as he wandered yet another hallway of the haunted house, ignoring the cheesy stock scares he was passing, "Zim has disappeared. Which is great, so I could just leave him here. Except Gaz is missing too, and I can't just abandon her. And on top of that, I have no idea where either of them are anyway. In fact, I'm pretty lost. How big is this place?"

"It's bigger on the inside!" GIR said, for some reason with a British accent.

"And you're still here. Forgot about that," Dib said with a groan, turning to look at the little robot, "Why are you following me, again?"

"You got the breadcrumbs, Bighead?"

"That doesn't answer my question. And my head's not big!" Dib snapped, stomping off to try and put some distance between him and GIR. As he did, he failed to notice as a rubber snake dangling from the ceiling suddenly came to life, twisting and morphing into a black mass. It slithered through the air towards him, and prepared to strike, totally unnoticed.

By him, anyway.

"Ooh, what's that?" GIR asked, staring curiously up at the tendril.

"What's what?" Dib asked, turning around. Eyes widening, he jumped aside with a yelp and barely avoided the tendril's strike. Hitting the floor and rolling, he got into a crouch and looked up, taking in the sight of what had just tried to attack him. It was a black tendril, attached at the base to the ceiling, with its free end split open into a maw that looked like a sea anemone, with numerous small, razor-thin glowing filaments flailing about within it.

"What the heck is that?!" Dib exclaimed, stunned at the bizarre sight. Then he cried out again as it lashed towards him once more. He rolled out of the way, and before it had a chance to rebound, he hit it with the nearest heavy object he could get his hands on — which turned out to be GIR, whom he grabbed around the waist. Lifting the robot over his head, Dib slammed him down on the tendril's head, smashing it into black and purple goo.

Breathing heavily from the sudden adrenaline rush, Dib dropped a giggling GIR, and moved to inspect the remains of the tendril.

"What is this thing?" Dib muttered, pulling a pencil from his pocket and using it to stir the goo around.

"Why don't you ask its friends?" GIR asked, pointing behind Dib. Spinning around to follow GIR's extended finger, Dib's eyes widened in fear. The hallway was rippling like water, and more tendrils were emerging from paintings, photographs, lights, decorations, and even the wood itself, rising up out of the walls, ceiling, and floor.

"…Ah, crap," Dib said flatly, before spinning on his heel and running down the hall.

The next few minutes were a blur, as Dib rushed down hall after hall and through door after door, ducking and dodging out of the way of countless tendrils, always seeming to stay only one step ahead of any of them. Finally, he burst out back into the front foyer the group had entered the house through. Pausing only for a moment to locate the door, Dib began sprinting for it, desperate to get out.

He'd tell people what happened here, and come back with reinforcements. Swollen Eyeballs, police, military, he didn't know who, but somebody would have to believe him. And when they did, he'd bring them back here to destroy this place!

Oh, and rescue Gaz and Zim and anybody else it had grabbed too, of course.

However, just before he could reach the front door, still slightly askew from when Gaz had kicked it open, it suddenly righted itself and slammed shut. Dib's eyes widened in surprise, but even as he tried to skid to a stop, his momentum slammed him into it, the impact knocking him off his feet to hit the floor.

Thus disoriented, Dib didn't notice as another tendril emerged from the floor behind him, and lashed out. It impacted directly with the back on his head, maw latching on tight, its filaments digging into the skull.

Dib screamed in momentary pain, before it subsided, and he suddenly found his surroundings totally changed. Blinking in confusion, he looked around, finding himself in what appeared to be a dilapidated grocery store.

"What? Where am I? How did I… gah," Dib muttered, grasping his aching head. Hadn't he been somewhere else a minute ago? He tried to remember, but his thoughts were cloudy and wouldn't focus. He shook his head, trying to clear it as best he could, before wandering off towards the shattered opening of the building, figuring he could better figure out where he was from the outside.

He stepped out of the store, and his eyes widened in shock.

Everything around him was in ruins. Buildings were collapsed, many of them on fire, or showing signs of having recently burned. Even more disturbing, however, was the sight of multiple Irken ships zooming about all over the city, as well as various hover-screens floating around, some displaying the Irken symbol or Zim's face. Others were flashing messages like "Zim rules!", "Humans, Obey or be Doomed!", and "No Loitering!".

"This… this isn't possible," Dib muttered. How could this have happened? It didn't make any sense.

"You there! Human!" a voice suddenly called out from behind him. Spinning around, Dib found himself facing a squadron of Irkens, all heavily armed and glaring at him.

"This area is off limits. What are you doing here?" the one in the lead demanded.

"Uh…" Dib said, too stunned by all this to properly react.

"Hey, wait a minute!" one of the other Irkens said, pulling up a holographic screen with Dib's face on it, "That's the bigheaded human Invader Zim told us to be on the lookout for!"

"My head's not big!" Dib shouted, purely on instinct, before lamely adding, "And, uh, no I'm not?"

"Seize him!" the lead Irken commanded, pointing at Dib. He turned and ran, but didn't get far before he was tackled to the ground. After a few minutes of struggle, he found himself bound high-tech manacles, laser guns pointed right at his neck by the Irkens surrounding him. As he sweated bullets, the lead Irken pulled out a communicator and dialed a few buttons.

"What is it?!" Zim's voice screeched out of the device, causing everyone to flinch.

"Sir, this is Patrol Unit 59290. We've found the human you had us on the lookout for."

"WHAT?!" Zim yelled, "You caught the Dib? Wonderful! Hmm, what should I do with him? Experimentation, or just vaporize him?"

"Well, sir, I think that-"

"Shut up! Zim doesn't care what you think!" Zim snapped, "Bring him to me at once! Or I'll turn your head into a doughnut!"

"Er… yes, sir?" the soldier confirmed in confusion, before shaking it off and putting the communicator away, turning back to his men and Dib, "You heard the Invader. Back to base!"

As the Irkens started forcibly marching him, Dib tried to struggle, only to be zapped with a shock rod. He fell to the ground, and was dragged away, twitching. And all the while, the screens bearing Zim's maniacally laughing face hovered above them all.

XXXXXXX

"Hee-hee. You're like a zombie," GIR giggled, poking at Dib's unresponsive body. The boy in question was lying slumped on the floor, supported only by the tendril attached to the back of his head, and his eyes staring blankly ahead, and glowing a vibrant purple.

GIR had followed Dib as he'd run through the house, the tendrils all ignoring him for some reason. GIR hadn't paid that much mind, skipping happily through the halls until he'd found Dib in his current condition. And as he watched, the tendril started pulling back, dragging Dib with it. As he reached the spot of the floor where the tendril was based, it all went black, and Dib started sinking into it like quicksand.

Most people would have reacted with shock or panic at a sight like this. GIR, however, was not by any stretch of the imagination what one might call "most people".

"Oooooo, let me come too!" GIR said, hopping onto Dib's legs at the last minute and being dragged down into the floor with him. As they vanished, the floor solidified and regained its normal color, seemingly entirely back to normal.

Meanwhile, Dib and GIR were falling down a deep, pitch black pit, the robot screaming at the top of his metal lungs in pure joy the whole time. After a few minutes, they hit the bottom, GIR bouncing off of Dib from the force of the impact.

"Geronimo!" he cried happily, looking around.

The chamber they'd landed in was truly massive, lit only by an unnatural glow the same shade of purple as that filling Dib's eyes. Speaking of which, as GIR watched, Dib was lifted up into the air by the tendril holding him, which carried him up into the air, coming to a rest dangling in the air… amongst hundreds of other people, including Gaz and Zim, all being held by tendrils, with their eyes glowing and totally dead to the world.

GIR, not really comprehending the horror of what he was seeing, moved his gaze, following the web of tendrils covering the roof of the chamber like a spider's web, towards where they all converged at a central spot. There, descending towards the floor like a giant stalactite, was a great amorphous black blob, covered in dozens of bulbous eyes, all glowing that same purple, the source of the light filling the room.

"Pretty lights," GIR cooed, staring at the horrible thing. In response to the sound of his voice, the eyes shifted around in the mass, many of them coming to rest in a way that left them looking at him.

" _What is this?_ " the creature demanded in a voice that sounded like gravel in a blender, " _Why did I not sense your presence before now, little worm?_ "

"You look like a Christmas tree!" GIR said, not answering the question.

" _…Ah, I see. You're some kind of imbecile. Well, that would explain why I couldn't feel your mind,_ " the being mused, " _Hmm, well, it doesn't matter. Allow me to introduce myself, tiny, insignificant being. I am Shlog'ec'mer. I am a life form from far beyond the universe as your puny three-dimensional mind comprehends it. I travel from world to world, feeding upon the weak. I disguise myself in other forms, like this pitiful attraction house, to lure them to me. And then, I take those whom my senses tell me have the deepest, most delicious traumas and fears._ "

As Shlog'ec'mer spoke, three of its eyes widened, and started displaying images like television screens. One showed Gaz, on a stage and being forced to do a publicity stunt for "Pig Girl the Movie". Another showed Zim, strapped to a table in a sterile white room, as men in lab coats towered over him wielding scalpels. And the third showed Dib chained up in a room full of Irkens, Zim leering at him from a throne as the other Irkens threw rocks and garbage at a bullseye painted on his head.

" _Once I have taken my prey, I trap them within their worst nightmares, which run on endless loops. Then I feed on the fear they feel in those nightmares, until their bodies and minds whither away. And once I've taken my fill of a world, I move on, in a never-ending- what are you doing?!_ "

GIR had completely tuned out Shlog'ec'mer's monologue, and was poking and prodding at its eyes.

"You got da Scary Monkey Show? I wanna see the monkey!" he yelled. The monster he was prodding growled in annoyance at his antics.

" _Enough of this! Now you join the rest!_ "

With that, a tendril emerged from the central mass and lashed out at GIR. He didn't even try to dodge it, and it hit him dead on, punching clean through the head of his costume and smacking into the metal of his actual head. The clanging sound took Shlog'ec'mer by surprise, but before it could be processed, the link was made, and its mind connected with GIR's.

The poor eldritch abomination never knew what hit it.

There was a moment of tense silence. Then suddenly, all of Shlog'ec'mer's purple eyes turned the same shade of blue as GIR's. It dropped him, and its mass and other tendrils started spasming wildly.

" _Half off prune juice Aisle 6! The cake is a lie! Here, piggy piggy! Red rover, red rover! Ich bien Berliner!_ " Shlog'ec'mer ranted and raved. All its tendrils began waving wildly, causing all its captives to go flying around the chamber, smacking into each other, its central mass, and the walls, all while GIR sat in the middle of the chaos, oohing and awing at everything that was happening.

Meanwhile, unseen from that chamber, the whole haunted house attraction was convulsing. The building was shaking, doors and windows slamming open and close, walls and floors cracking open. The lights flickered and the audio equipment squealed, as if they were all suffering a power surge. And most telling of all, entire portions of the structure dissolved into masses of flailing tendrils.

The outside view was even more bizarre, for the few who actually bothered to stop and take a look. Lights flashed through every window, even as the glass shattered and blew out, and the entire building shook. And then, the building actually began twisting and contorting, shifting to a black mass shot through with blue light. That mass kept twisting even as it grew like an overinflated balloon, bigger, and bigger, and bigger…

Finally, with a screeching sound mostly out of the range audible to human hearing, that balloon popped. In a flash of pure light, the goo exploded, most of it vaporizing in the process. The flash lasted only a few moments, and when it faded, it revealed a surprising sight.

The haunted house had become a crater, filled with the remnants of the goo, as well as the numerous people that Shlog'ec'mer had been feeding on. All of them were singed and unconscious, though none were seriously harmed, and a few were slowly coming around.

"Ergh, what happened?" Dib groaned as he woke up, rubbing his head. Looking around, he blinked at the sight of all the other unconscious people around him.

"Hey, I think those are all the people who went missing," he said, "But what are they doing here? What am _I_ doing here? Where'd the haunted house go-AH!"

Dib was cut off as Gaz suddenly grabbed him by the throat and started dragging him away.

"We are leaving. _Now,_ " she growled, not even looking at Dib as she pulled him behind her, ignoring his protests.

Meanwhile, Zim stirred back awake and sat up, clutching his head in pain.

"Gah, what hit me?" he muttered.

"The Christmas tree man exploded!" GIR said, from where he was sitting nearby.

"Eh? What are you talking about?"

"Hey!" a voice called out. Looking up at the top of the crater, Zim saw a Carnival security guard glaring down at him.

"Did you do this?" the guard demanded.

"Um, no, it was… him!" Zim said, pointing at a random unconscious person. He then grabbed GIR and ran off, quickly exiting the Carnival.

And with that, this story came to a close, already destined to be totally forgotten.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry if the ending's a little lackluster, but it's the best I could come up with.
> 
> Please comment!


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